Ever since I heard Gaiman’s talk about Dandelion’s I’ve loved the imagery of spreading your seeds (art) to the wind and seeing what takes root.

Happy Anniversary to Indie Me!

I’m celebrating this month. Two years ago I published my first book as an independent author (I was traditionally published prior). It was a non-fiction book about investing in stocks. Shorter than most trad books, but I was happy with it none-the-less.

At the end of my first year I had published four books under my real name, and four short stories (fiction) under a pen name.

That year I made $4,104.09

In my second year (the past twelve months), I published two more non-fiction books, twelve short stories, and three novels, under various names.

I’ve moved further into fiction now, predominately everything I write is something I make up. It’s such fun.

My first year was about learning how to self publish. My second year was learning about writing fiction.

Going forward, my third year, will be about improving my skills as a fiction writer. Improving my ‘craft’ so to speak.

My earlier stories were (putting it nicely) not great. But they were the best I could do at the time with the skill-set that I had. I make no excuses for them though – my earlier works still sell better than my later works, so I have no intention of taking them down just because I believe I could do better now. Maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t. Instead, my time will be better spent writing newer books & stories.

Adding more product, if you will.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that more product equals more profit.

Going Forward

What else have I learned in this past year?

Marketing is important – but shouldn’t be your focus.

I prefer subtle, hands off marketing. I don’t tweet links to my books, I closed down the only Facebook page I had (I never updated it anyway). And while I do like chatting over at the Google Self Publishing Community I’m a member of, I don’t talk about my books there.

My version of marketing is simple – I have a mailing list and a blog. I write new posts about my latest book to create interest. Things like revealing snippets of text or showing cover design. I point people to join my mailing list so I can let them know when a new release is available, but don’t push it hard.

That’s pretty much the extent of my ‘marketing’. Blog & mailing list. And even those are pretty sporadic (I only start blogging about the upcoming release in the few weeks prior to it coming out). Classic buzz marketing.

According to my sales reports, my short stories still outsell my novels by a large margin.

Of course that could be because of a number of factors (perhaps I haven’t acquired the necessary chops as a good novel writer yet, the cover design isn’t connecting with my intended audience, or my blurb sucks). But for ‘Business Tracey’ it means that this year I’m going to focus more on shorter lengths than novel lengths.

Probably novella length is what I’m aiming for. I’ ll eventually go back to novels, but right now I want to focus on where the best time/money return is, and the fact is – novels take me longer to write. Shorter works make me more money.

Besides I’ve got a million ideas of what I want to write so ‘Writer Tracey’ will still be happy.

And speaking of detachment, don’t take reviews personally. I know it’s hard, I still cringe with a bad one and I’m elated with a good one, but I’m getting better. I don’t want my happiness and self-worth determined by someone else’s opinion.

Amazon isn’t the only store in town

In my second year of publishing, Amazon represented 49% of my overall sales. The rest was made up from Apple, B&N, Kobo and Smashwords (and its various distribution network).

Amazon is my biggest market, (Apple is second, B&N third, Kobo fourth, and the rest are coffee money). I don’t agree (nor have I ever) with putting all my eggs in the one basket.

I prefer wide distribution.

Amazon can (and has) changed its algorithms for Select exclusivity many times over the past year. From all reports it isn’t as effective any more. While many of my author friends used it successfully, I wonder how much that strategy will work for them going forward.

It does take time to start earning on Apple, B&N etc. Give it a good few months – I’ve found that books take much longer to ‘seed’ there, but once they do – it’s worth it (in my experience). The same rules apply for those stores than they do with Amazon – the more books you have up, the easier it is for customers to find you.

Goals (and Hopes) for Year 3

Publish Seven Books
If I start write novella lengths (15,000 – 20,000) which is my plan, then I could probably write one book every 4 to 6 weeks. That means I’m aiming for about 10 books in the next year. I predict, however, that it’ll be a little less than that – so I predict I’ll write seven. (I will aim for more though – promise).

Earn $16,000 (1300+ per month)
Sales wise, last year I grossly overestimated. So this year I’m going to be more conservative and realistic. $16,000. If I can double my income from year one to year two, there is no reason why I can’t do it from year two to year three. Right?

Amazon Ranking (Author & Book)
My goal is to get my main pen-name author ranking into the top 500 (currently she is hovering over 2,000 in romance). The more books I write under her name, the more sales I can make. It should be doable. I also make a prediction that one of the stories I write in the next twelve months will get as low as 500 rank – fingers crossed.

That’s it, really. Overall it’s been a successful year full of learning and fun. Something which I plan on continuing over the next year.

So, happy anniversary to me, and here’s to a positive & successful year three!

I can’t turn anywhere these days without someone claiming that self published books are all horrid. Writers forums, communities, large news sites, blogs – everyone has an opinion and most of it isn’t good.

It’s as if it’s become accepted that if you self publish, you aren’t good enough for a traditional publisher. Not a real writer.

(By the way – I use the term ‘self’ published lightly since not many of us do everything ourselves, often we hire people to do covers, editing, formatting and so on. Indie publishing is a much better term (and the one I personally prefer), but I’ll continue using self during this article since that’s what most media are using).

It’s not just media and angry bloggers that sneer at self pubbers though, even self published authors view other self published authors with derision, and feel it’s their duty to point out their crimes to the world.

“She can’t write, look at where she put a comma”,

“My god – did you see that she wrote an action tag where it wasn’t needed”,

“Too formulaic”,

“The cover looks like my dog did it”,

“I’m going to do it the right way and ask for fifty thousand dollars on a Kickstarter project so I can pay someone an exorbitant fee and feel better about myself”,

“I had a New York Editor tell me I have talent so I’m better than you”.

Sigh.

Being a writer is hard enough, but when your fellow authors can’t support you, you better have a good outside support system to get you through that kind of criticism otherwise you’ll give up (writers can take a bad review to the extreme which may or may not include vodka, donkey’s and loaded water pistols. Not that I would know. *cough*).

Look, I’m not naive enough to believe that every book that is uploaded to Amazon is good. Any monkey can spend a bit of time at the keyboard and crank out words if they put enough hours into it. Just like anyone can put up a website with dubious ‘articles’ and slap some Adsense on it. Not that I would know that either *cough cough* (pops some cough lozenges).

But just as the bad websites fade into obscurity, so do the bad books.

Readers are not stupid. They can decide what they like and do not like.
(And remember what one person likes another doesn’t.)

Readers decide what is good and what they will pay money for (and if they don’t – they get a refund and avoid that author in the future).

My onlyjob is to make sure I write something good and entertaining (fiction) or good and informative (non fiction), and get it in front of readers who’ll like it. Which isn’t always as simple as it sounds…

How to write GOOD self published books (that won’t make someone stab their eyes out).

Writers get better two ways – by reading (a lot) and by writing (a lot).

But there are ways to fast-track your skills so the (a lot) part doesn’t take as long, which I’m about to talk about.

Many authors today are too busy obsessing over the ‘marketing’ side of publishing, that I feel they sometimes forget to work on the ‘craft’ side.

Improving the craft side, and learning to write better stories, will make you far more ‘marketable’ than spending your time ‘marketing’.

The first way is to study.

Study bestselling novels and see what they are doing – How do they write cliffhangers? How do they develop characters?

Or you could take craft workshops and read craft books. I’m currently on my third workshop for the year, and let’s not get started on the amount of craft books I’m amassing.

Focused practice.

You remember the old ‘rule’ that you needed 10,000 hours to learn something? Well turns out – that is only for those wanting to be an expert. Who has the time to be an expert?

Let’s say you want to write good hook openings to your stories, and you want to spend the next month “practicing” to get better at it.

You already know that a good opening must have a character in a setting with a problem (from the seven point plot outline).

Start by reading a few books in your genre that you thought did a good job at drawing you in. Notice what the author did. Was it first person, third?, how much sensory detail was in it? Fast paced, slow-paced? Where did they start the story – in action, in emotion?

Read a few more books in another genre (to compare). How did they do their openings? If they used different tricks, could you translate that into your genre (could you put an emotional hook from a romance into a science fiction book? Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won’t – you won’t know until you experiment.

Practice writing your own openings. Write three different openings using some of the techniques you liked, and see which one is better. Write it again and see if you can make it even better. What worked, and what didn’t?

The self indie published writers who are getting it right, and who do write great books, ARE the ones that work on their craft. They are constantly striving to make sure the next book is better than the previous.

And I’ve read some great one’s.

Each new book is a step towards writing THE ONE. We’ll never get there of course – none of us ever think our own writing is good enough (writers also suffer from both crushing self-doubt and illusions that we are most brilliant – very often at the same exact moment).

It’s not just indie authors, all authors continually work on getting better. Find an author you love and read their earliest books and you’ll see how much they’ve grown. You get better by writing more.

I received an email from Goodreads this morning, informing me that Amazon has just acquired them, and I knew immediately that this was going to create a huge stir in the indie author community. I was right – boards such as the newly renamed kboards.com are abuzz with speculation – what does this mean for us? Oh woe, Amazon is going to screw us, oh doom.

Most people don’t like change, and this is extremely evident in the author world (we are a skittish bunch).

But since I like to look at things from all angles I wanted to have a think about this before I commented. I’ve read a few news reports, a few blog posts, a few forum discussions. Admittedly this is all second-hand information – I’m not privy to any of the inner workings of Amazon or Goodreads, but it’s good to get some initial impressions and opinions before I formed my own.

At the moment, my thoughts are this – it’s a good thing (as Martha would say).

What does Amazon have, more than any other site? = Books

What does Goodreads have, more than any other site? = Readers

Bringing the very thing that the readers want, to their fingertips, will make it easier to purchase their favorite books (you just know that Amazon is going to integrate an easy way for readers to buy books – many people are speculating already that they may introduce a buy button or at least a link directly to the Amz book page).

Many people currently complain that Goodreads can be clunky and hard to find your way around, if there is a tuck and tweak to the website to create a better user experience, and we all know that Amazon is well-known for tweaking their own site for maximum efficiency and (obviously) revenue, that can only help to improve the overall reader experience.

True, it does mean that the largest reader social site online right now will now promote Amz books, and not other stores. You already know that I’m against the exclusivity of Amazon’s Select program preferring wider distribution, however, a one click buy will make it much easier for readers.

So for readers, I can see this acquisition is a very good thing.

But what about authors?

Bringing books directly to readers is what Amazon has always been about from the moment they first introduced the Kindle.

Since they did so back in 2007 a new world opened up for authors. The rise of the independent author rose unlike any other time in history, and it created a way for authors to get their product directly into the hands of the consumer without having to go through a middleman.

That move was revolutionary and I for one am so thankful for the opportunities I have today because of it.

This latest move – Amazon acquiring Goodreads – was all about Amazon acquiring more customers for their business. Specifically – readers for their Kindle eBooks.

More readers for ebooks means more income for authors.

Let me repeat that – more readers buying ebooks, means more income for authors.

Yes, all the income will come from one store (although customers still do have a choice where to buy as they always have). But more readers and therefore buyers, has to be good for authors.

And don’t think that Apple (especially) and perhaps Kobo (although I think B&N doesn’t have much fight left in them) will ignore this. They’ll be looking for new ways to acquire new customers. This news will fire them up to try to entice readers over to their stores to buy books, too. Again making it better for authors.

We’ll see some interesting moves from them in the future – if they are smart.

But won’t Amazon change Goodreads?

They didn’t change Shelfari when they acquired them. They just integrated Shelfari into the Amz site with extra metadata including character names, series info, etc.

They didn’t take away Createspace’s ability to distribute elsewhere. You can still get your print books into other online stores with extended distribution.

When they started KDP (before it was called that), over time they’ve made it better and easier for authors.

Everything they’ve acquired at this point has only made better opportunities for authors. And right now, I can only see that this acquisition is better for authors too, by making it better for readers.

When I first heard this comment from an independent author, it made me laugh, but then I started to really think about it, and the more I did, the more it actually seemed as if traditional publishing IS starting to become a vanity option for authors.

Let’s look at some of the comparisons to see what I mean:

Ten years ago, authors would ‘vanity’ publish for the prestige of having a ‘real’ book published.

Today, authors who traditionally publish, do so for the ‘prestige’ of having a ‘real’ book published.

Ten years ago, vanity published authors paid thousands of dollars to get their books printed, and often had hundreds of pre-printed books cluttering up their garages because they couldn’t sell them to bookstores.

Today, publishers often have hundreds (or even thousands) of pre-printed books cluttering up their warehouses, since there are no longer many (any?) bookstores to send them to.

Ten years ago, a vanity press author would be unlikely to ever make money from their work.

Today, due to draconian contracts, most traditionally published authors are never likely to make much money from their work.

Could it be perhaps, that self publishing is actually becoming a better, more enlightened, option for smart authors today? An option that actually compensates us fairly for our work AND allows us to reach an audience directly.

Have you ever gone to a live performance and seen an actor fluff his lines? Did you storm out of the theatre and demand your money back or did you stay to watch the rest of the play?

Have you ever watched a TV show and saw in the corner a shot of the boom mike, or a reflection of the cameraman in a window or mirror? Did you scream at the screen and refuse to watch the rest of it or did you laugh and then forget about it?

Or how about noticing a crooked picture at an art gallery? Did it make you swear that you’d never look at another painting from that artist again?

Then why do people freak out so much if a self published author has the gall to accidently let a typo slip through before they published their book?

Let’s not get into an argument about whether typo’s slip through in trad publishing as well because we know they do – but yes it happens far less frequently.

Let me say for the record – we don’t do it to piss you off.

Seriously.

It’s just that when you’ve read and re-read the same piece over a few times your brain just skips over words and we miss things.

It’s accidental.

And when we see those errors, because a kind reader has thoughtfully pointed them out to us, we fix them. It’s that simple. We live in the digital age where files can be changed in an instant. It’s really not that big of a deal.

Or at least I didn’t think it was until I came across the haters.

GET AN EDITOR.

YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE PUBLISHED

YOU MUST WRITE CRAP

SELF PUBLISHING IS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BE TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED

WTF?

Ok, I get that sometimes a misplaced dash or misspelled word can jar us out of the story for a second. But is it really so bad that you ignore everything else about the author’s work? Does bad punctuation mean a bad story?

Do we all have to get professional editors to be taken seriously?

The publishing world is changing. The gatekeepers are losing control. It’s true that anyone now has the ability to publish anything they like now.

But I think that’s what is so GREAT about the new self publishing world. Writers need to write. Want to be read.

I get cranky if I haven’t had a chance to write something for a few days. Whether that’s a blog post, a chapter or two, a short story, or even sometimes just an email. Once I’ve put fingers to keyboard I feel calm again. Happy.

And now writers everywhere can finally share their work with others.

It’s a revolution man!

And I think it’s a great new world to be a part of. The world of creation. Imagination. Possibility.

I want to read thoughts and ideas from other people. I want to see different points of view. Be transported to new worlds. Laugh. Cry. Learn.

Ok. You get the point.

And I understand your frustration over works that are not as polished and perfect as they have been in the past. Most of us can’t afford professional editing right now but in our hearts we do want our work to be good. Great even.

And when we can afford to do so, we will.

But understand – we are not trying to dupe you. We really think our work is good and we’ve tried our best to make it as error free as possible.

We are proud of our work.

And that’s the reason we put it out there for other’s to read. We want to share our ideas, our stories.

Here’s the truth of it for me:

I would much rather live in a world where everyone has a voice than where people are told they are not good enough.

Sure there might be lots of books that are not to the same standard as they have been in the past. But is that really so bad?

Or is it empowering us, both readers and writers alike to find their tribes, their people, those that ‘get’ us?

I can’t wait for this new publishing world and it’s possibilities to become mainstream. It’s already started happening with previously traditionally published author’s venturing into self publishing.

And I’m sure we are in for a rocky ride. But let’s enjoy it and celebrate this new found freedom, not complain about things that can be fixed in a nanosecond.